Niijima Yae

, born (1 December 1845 – 14 June 1932), also known as , was a Japanese onna-musha, educator, nurse, and scholar of the late Edo period who lived into the early Shōwa period. Her samurai family belonged to the Hoshina clan, loyal to the Tokugawa Shogunate. Skilled in gunnery, she helped defend the Aizu Domain during the Boshin War, earning her the nicknames “Nightingale of Japan” and “Bakumatsu Joan of Arc”. Yaeko served as a nurse during the Russo-Japanese War and Sino-Japanese War, and became the first woman outside of Imperial House of Japan after the Meiji Restoration (originated in 1870s) to be decorated for her service to the country. She was famously known as the wife of Joseph Hardy Neesima, the founder of Doshisha English School in 1875, and with a help of American missionary Alice J. Starkweather, they co-founded the Doshisha Girls’ School a year later. Early life Yamamoto Yae was born the daughter of Yamamoto Gonpachi, a samurai and one of the official gunnery instructors in Aizu Domain, and his wife Saku. Her family claimed descent from the Takeda clan's retainer Yamamoto Kansuke. In 1865, she was married to Shonosuke Kawasaki, a Rangaku scholar from Izushi Domain. Boshin War